News

6 June 2017

Vodafone protects from fake news sites.

Vodafone announced a number of new global rules intended to
keep its advertising away from outlets featuring hate speech and fake
news.The new rules, already in effect,
adopt what the company defines as a “whitelist-based approach” using content
controls designed by its global agency network, led by WPP, as well as Google
and Facebook.The aim is to ensure that
Vodafone ads only appear on selected sites identified as “highly unlikely” to
be focused on harmful content. "Hate speech and fake news threaten to
undermine the principles of respect and trust that bind communities
together.We will not tolerate our brand
being associated with this kind of abusive and damaging content,” said Vodafone
Group CEO Vittorio Colao in a statement on the new rules.

The company said the whitelist would be reviewed
regularly to ensure it is appropriate and neither too broad nor too
narrow.It added that only sites whose
“predominant purpose” is to communicate and share harmful material would be
excluded from the whitelist.Sites that
carry some hate speech or fake news would not be blocked.

This latest move from Vodafone comes after it pulled its
adverts from Google and YouTube in March amid concerns they were appearing next
to "inappropriate" content from supporters of extremist groups.